just recently I have been reading the book “Brewing Like a Monk” which covers a lot of the traditions and methods of the Belgian Trappist Monks and how they make beer. Good read.
I happen to like the Belgian Ales and recently brewed a kit from NB with great success.
The interesting bit I find is that the kit recommends to have the secondary fermentation take place with temps 65F-70F whilst in the book all of the Trappists do secondary around 32-40F! This is highly surprising to me, since this sounds more like lagering.
So the question is: should we do the secondary fermentation of the kits at much lower temperatures or not?
just recently I have been reading the book “Brewing Like a Monk” which covers a lot of the traditions and methods of the Belgian Trappist Monks and how they make beer. Good read.
I happen to like the Belgian Ales and recently brewed a kit from NB with great success.
The interesting bit I find is that the kit recommends to have the secondary fermentation take place with temps 65F-70F whilst in the book all of the Trappists do secondary around 32-40F! This is highly surprising to me, since this sounds more like lagering.
So the question is: should we do the secondary fermentation of the kits at much lower temperatures or not?[/quote]
I just bottled my second Tripel. I’m no expert on the subject, but I had it around 63 during the time in the secondary both times I’ve made it.
If you have the ability to cold condition, it helps to clarify the beer by dropping the yeast out of suspension. It also rounds out the flavors.
However, you don’t want to drop the temperature or rack the beer to a secondary vessel until fermentation is complete (by which I mean you have reached terminal gravity and given the yeast adequate time to clean up some of the less desirable by-products of fermentation).
Personally, after fermentation, I like to drop the temperature in primary down to near freezing for several days and then rack into the serving keg which I continue to cold condition in the kegerator for several weeks (while simultaneously carbonating).
